Former New York Sen. Moynihan dies at 76

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Former Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a New York City shoe shine boy who became an iconoclastic scholar-politician and served four terms in the Senate, died in Washington Wednesday. He was 76.

The New York Democrat and former UN ambassador had been in ill health. He was hospitalized in January for an intestinal disorder, and again soon after for a back injury.

His latest setback was an infection after an emergency appendectomy on March 11 at the Washington Hospital Center.

Moynihan served in the Senate from 1977 to 2001. He was succeeded by Hillary Rodham Clinton, who announced her Senate candidacy in a torch-passing news conference at Moynihan's farm in July 1999.